Mirror, Mirror, on The … Person?

Level 4: Serious Player

I look at my 8 month old son, and I see myself and my dad in his eyes, in his face, in his smile.

He smiles. I smile back. He smiles even more. 

He bonks his head (climber this one).

He is sad.

I am sad.

He looks in my eyes and I make the face he makes.

He sees my calm. He calms.

I smile a little.  He brightens up.

We are self centered creatures at our core. It makes sense for survival.  Our innate drive and tendencies are towards our own interest and care. 

But for all our self-centeredness we lack the ability to see our own selves clearly. 

Not without a mirror.

And yet, we don't spend our days staring into the physical object "mirror." Instead, we have evolved to use everything else in the world as a mirror.

Built into our DNA is reflection. We've developed over eons the nuanced power to see ourselves in everything around us.

We see ourselves in the subtle expression of other people's eyes.

We see ourselves in the stories told of heroes and adventurers.

We see ourselves in the impact our actions make.

To our own self, we are but shadows and echos of our own reflection off other living things.

That also means we NEED other living things to see ourselves fully, to live ourselves fully.

That also means we are vulnerable to the exploits of other living things who take advantage of that need for a mirror and show us someone we are NOT.

Whether you like it or not, YOU are a mirror, and you need one yourself.

The Scrutiny of Emulation

There's an advanced concept we talk about in TGA we can call "Scrutiny and Expectations." The short version is, when you are in the role of a leader, "everything you do comes under a microscope." (Read more about Scrutiny and Expectations here)¹

I want to talk about a subset of this idea which I've come to know and call "The Scrutiny of Emulation."

This is one we are all subject to in one way or another.

Most especially if you have kids.

There are two gifts TGA has given me since I joined which I am forever grateful. The consciousness to embrace slowing down, and the gift of greater self-awareness. 

It was right around joining TGA that I married and officially became a step father to 3 kids.  I embraced this knowing it was exactly the right path for me to walk. 

But I had not been a father before. So with that role came a flood of reflection.

Like being in a funhouse mirror room, I could see my own kid self in these kids ... all the memories of life growing up flooding back into my everyday conscious and subconscious. 

I remember distinctly, words from Jason Campbell during a Luna Den call many moons ago.  "Respond, don't react."

In those words baked the tenants of our self-awareness and restraint philosophies. Our natural, chemical snap response often does not serve us well.

We want to embrace The Champion’s Mind, not submit to our Human Mindset.

Slowing down, having that restraint allowed me to fully embrace and live an understanding of my kids I'd always intellectually thought to be true, but never experienced ...

You can't MAKE them be or do anything. 

You can't tell them to do or be a certain way and expect them to do or be that way.

Some people think otherwise, and will manipulate or beat down their kids emotionally so that they conform to rigid external expectations ... they might then appear to be who or what those people wish them to be ...

But that's not how it works.

They are their own people. And they are their own people who are in that process of growing into and discovering whoever it is they really are.

Trying to logically push them in directions doesn't work. It's like shoving against non-newtonian fluid. (ever do that experiment in school? you fill a shallow pool with the liquid then everyone runs across it and freaks out at the weirdness)

It's all mirrors.

Kids don't learn by being told what to do.

They learn by observing who you are.

I have a tendency to use a lot of descriptive language in everyday speech. Unusual words such as "confounded" and pictorial exaggeration to express experience.

The other day our 7 year old daughter popped in the kitchen and said "dang it. my lego house is totally smashed to oblivion!" 

(a few pieces came apart)

After she left the room I turned to my wife and chuckled "smashed to oblivion, that's silly."

She smirked, "I wonder where she got that from."

This is The Scrutiny of Emulation.

It doesn't pertain just to raising children.

This is the power of being a mirror paired with being the person in power. The leader. The guide. The Mentor.  The Parent. The one whom many look up to or toward for guidance and help in becoming something more than they are now (whether those people realize they are doing it or not).

And that is a position you don't always choose to be in ... it's a position that often depends upon how others view you.

It's likely we all have people in our life to whom we fall under The Scrutiny of Emulation, yet without fully realizing the dynamic, or the importance of that role and scrutiny.

This scrutiny is not bad. 

It is simply a function of our biology.

We are mirrors. But we are living breathing mirrors with our own behaviors, actions, ideas, perceptions.

We don't reflect to others themselves in perfect clarity. They are reflected through us.

This is why those who would seek to be leaders, mentors, guides in our eyes might easily manipulate us into being just like them. 

Because if we allow ourselves to be in a position where we see them as a guide, as a mentor, and we look at them, as we attempt to see ourselves, we see the reflection filtered through not just WHO they are, but through who, what, and how they present themselves to us.

On the flipside as the Leader observes you, they also see a mirror. And if they are unaware, they may be putting all their effort into twisting you until you perfectly reflect the image of themselves they expect to see.

This awareness is critical.  

Not just for protecting yourself against those who'd use your reflection against you, but because you must also be aware of when YOU are the mirror.

Living in a world of mirrors

As much as it is important for you to be aware of this dynamic and your impact as a mirror on others, it's just as important to recognize yourself in the role of looking into the mirror.

How many times have you reacted negatively to something someone has said or done, and you go on to blame, berate, or otherwise put down that person? How many times have you seen that dynamic in others?

How many times have you seen someone make an accusation of someone else, blaming them of doing or being a certain way, and in the clear light of neutrality and ambivalence you can obviously see that they are simply projecting their own selves upon that person?

You're a cheater! ... says the cheater.

You see, one of the main reasons in TGA we go through all of this great effort, all of these lenses, all of this deep thought and personal work to unlock self-awareness in the present moment is because we NEED to really see who we are in this world full of mirrors.

Because if we don't have that self awareness, then every day of our lives we lose ourselves in the funhouse. 

If you don't know who you are then when you see "the reflection" of yourself in someone or something else (as we all do, all the time), you can't tell which part of what you are seeing is YOU and which part is THEM.

Until you have that self awareness you do not have the full capability of really knowing other people as the true individuals they are, because trapped within their visage is your own reflection coming right back at you.

And you can’t take in, integrate, understand, and benefit from new ideas that may act like those mirrors because you can’t parse self from concept.

Do you see all the layers of problems occur in life without that self awareness?

Manipulating the Mirror

One of the obvious reasons to become aware of this mirror effect is to avoid exploitation.

One of the most common "guru" approaches is to say "look how successful I am, don't you want to be like me?" 

When you realize yourself and the impact the mirror has on how you view the other person you realize that when you look at them, your own self gets swirled in the mix of who they are. Reflected back to you is an image of who you could be if all you did was the things this person said. After all, they did them, you can do them, that means you're just a few short steps from being super rich and you can really feel it.

You can feel it because all you're looking at is a magical mirror that shows you exactly what you want to see in this other person. Yourself reflected back in the form of success you think you ought to have.

When you have the self awareness and understanding that everything is a mirror, when you see someone say "you can be just like me and have this success, see!" You immediately see which part you're looking at is the reflection and which part is the person talking to you. And you can see this other person is perhaps just as lost and confused in life as you are, trying to figure it all out, trying things that others told them to do in order to 'be successful.' Who knows if they really are.

But in that moment what's important is you see yourself for who YOU are. And that very shift disconnects you from the "persuasive power" that others will use (knowingly or not) in manipulating the mirror.

Why I Write (This)

I bring this all back to the beginning in a way that may be self-serving, but I think may clearly round out the effect that this article has on being a mirror. 

So you can see who I the writer am, and perhaps in that deduce who YOU see reflected back to you.

I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say - Flannery O'Conner

I quote this a lot because this is what I do. 

In writing these articles, I'm quite literally building a mirror for myself in the words. I take the concept I'm exploring, pull out all the thoughts, ideas, and words I think about it, allow those words to be my mirror so that I can see in the reflection of myself what it is I really think and believe.

There's always something new to be discovered. Often in the moment as I write the words, in real time, a new thought or clarity of understanding appears. But often as well in returning and reflecting upon what I have written, having taken my own observed thoughts with me in everyday life.  

That's also why so often I just use those everyday life experiences as a way of illustrating what I'm trying to explain. 

I'm building a mirror for YOU. 

Because it's in the observation and experience of other people's lives and experiences that we can self-reflect ... if we have the awareness to recognize the mirror and see which part is the reflection.

I think the most powerful thing someone else can do for you (or you could do) is willingly hold up the mirror and say, "hey, this is a mirror, and look, that part of it is you."

You might not like the reflection you now see, but in that discomfort you can learn so much about who you are and who you'd like to be.

1. Scrutiny And Expectation